Pilot killed in crash known for humanitarian flights

Federal officials were at the scene Thursday of a plane crash the day before that killed a local attorney who also was the president of a New Smyrna Beach airport group.

RICHARD CONNSTAFF WRITER

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Paul Rooy had flown his Cessna 337 into the heart of South America. He also piloted the plane when he and his wife traveled to the Caribbean islands to deliver medical supplies and find new homes for pets displaced by disasters. “It was truly a workhorse,” Mike Holoman, a longtime friend of Rooy, said of the six-seat, twin-engine prop plane. “I mean, I've flown in the same plane halfway across the United States with him and his wife." Federal investigators have begun their investigation to determine what caused that same small plane piloted by Rooy to crash Wednesday in a cow pasture shortly after takeoff from New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport. Rooy was killed in the crash and the only person on board. Shawn Etcher, air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, D.C., said Rooy, 56, was headed west after takeoff. The pilot took a left turn and then shortly thereafter said “Mayday.” “That was his last transmission,” Etcher said while at the crash scene Thursday. The plane then struck a tree before hitting power lines and crashing into the field, Etcher said. A witness on the scene, Rick Chapman, said he saw the plane hit the tree and power lines before it “disintegrated.” No one on the ground was injured. Federal officials gathered wreckage that will be taken back with them to Washington. A preliminary NTSB report on the crash will be ready in the next five to 10 days. Plane crash investigations like this can take three months to a year to complete, Etcher said. Rooy, a local patent attorney, was a certified engineer as well as president of the Friends of New Smyrna Beach Airport and one of the founders of the annual New Smyrna Beach Balloon & Sky Fest. “He was very involved in the community,” said Holoman, a fellow pilot who is the treasurer for the Friends of New Smyrna Beach Airport. “He was very charitable in all that he did, not just in words but in deeds.” That altruistic nature was evident in the humanitarian relief organization Rooy ran with his wife, Mary Lightfine, called Volunteers Without Boundaries. Holoman said the couple would travel to disaster areas and bring back pets left homeless by disasters and find them new homes in the U.S. “They did a lot of humanitarian work, he and his wife,” said Rhonda Walker, manager of the New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport. “I know that they flew some supplies to some other disaster areas and dropped them off.” Walker said Rooy and other local pilots formed the Friends of New Smyrna Beach Airport in part as a response to a group of neighbors who had complained about noise from the airfield and helped try to solve the issue. “He wanted to show the best sides of the airport, the economic side, and that every pilot isn't out to make the neighborhoods go nuts on us,” Walker said. However, Holoman said the Friends of New Smyrna Beach Airport was mainly about keeping the airport open and thriving, especially after one of the runways had closed. “He was all about making the airport viable, making it an economic benefit for the community,” Walker said. “He did a lot for this airport so his shoes are going to be hard to fill.” Rooy and Lightfine took off from the New Smyrna airport two years ago in the Cessna T 337C Skymaster and flew to South America. “They charted it as they flew on one of those messaging systems,” Walker said. “So you could know exactly where he was at any time and he would give any updates of things that they saw along the way. “We watched him on that whole journey,” she said. Etcher said there weren't any obvious weather issues during the short flight Wednesday — the crash was reported at 1:13 p.m. — but said it was a little “choppy.” That will be part of what investigators look at when they consider contributors to the crash including pilot error, mechanical malfunction or the environment. Walker said the crash was the second with a fatality involving a plane that took off from New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport since she began working there in 1998. In September 2007, 74-year-old Bruce Smith was killed when his single-engine airplane slammed into trees at the airport. He had just taken off when he radioed the control tower he was having problems with the aircraft. Wednesday's crash was the third fatal plane wreck in Volusia and Flagler counties within a year.